Chapter 3
The message gave no name.
That should have been enough to make me delete it.
Instead, I read it until the letters blurred.
Outside, daylight thinned over the stone courtyard. The broken balcony cast a jagged shadow across the ground. Every few minutes, someone crossed the room below my window. I could tell by the movement of the shadow, never by the person.
Daniel had stationed himself near the stairs.
Margaret came upstairs twice with tea I didn't drink. The second time, she sat in the chair beside my bed.
“You've always been sensitive,” she said.
I kept my eyes on the curtains. “Is that what you're calling today?”
“I’m calling today an accident.”
“That word is doing a lot of work for you.”
Her gloved hands rested over her knees. I hadn't seen her wear gloves before. The left one hid the hand that had pressed against Rosa's fingers.
“You're carrying Daniel's child,” she said. “You should think about what instability would do to him.”
“To the child?”
“To everyone.”
I turned toward her. “Did Richard leave something for me?”
Margaret's face remained cold, but her breathing changed. A small pause. Then another.
“Richard left a great many papers.”
“One of them has my name on it.”
She stood.
“Rest,” she said. “When you're calmer, you'll understand that Daniel and I are the only people who can protect you.”
After she left, I took the folded page from beneath the mattress.
The number on the back connected to a pay phone near a county road. I knew the location because Daniel had once driven me past it. There was a gas station across from a small church parking lot, both visible from the road. It wasn't private. It wasn't safe, exactly, but it was public.
I needed to leave the house without giving them time to stop me.
The idea came from the clinic worker's instructions. She had written a number on a card and left it in my robe pocket. I called it from the bathroom.
“I need a ride to the county road,” I said.
The woman on the phone asked whether I required an ambulance.
“No. I need transportation.”
There was a silence.
“I can send someone,” she said. “But if you're in danger, call emergency services.”
“I understand.”
When I hung up, my knees shook. I sat on the closed toilet and waited for the feeling to pass.
Rosa appeared at the bathroom door.
I hadn't heard her approach.
Her injured hand was wrapped in a dish towel. Her face looked gray with pain.
“They put me in the pantry,” she said.
I stood. “You shouldn't be walking.”
“Neither should you.”
“I found the page.”
Rosa shut the door behind her. “Then you know Richard meant to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
She looked at the floor. “I don't know all of it.”
“That isn't good enough.”
“No.” Her voice tightened. “But it is what I have.”
I waited.
“Richard asked me to witness a new envelope being sealed,” she said. “Margaret wasn't there. Daniel was, but he left before the seal was finished.”
“What was inside?”
“I didn't see the pages.”
“Who did?”
Rosa raised her eyes. “A lawyer in town. Mr. Vale. He kept the original.”
The anonymous number had sent the message from a county exchange.
“Is Mr. Vale the one who contacted me?”
“I don't know.”
“Why didn't you tell me before?”
Her swollen fingers curled inside the towel. “Because people who tell the truth in this house lose their rooms, their wages, sometimes more than that.”
I thought of Margaret's shoe pressing down.
Rosa reached into her apron and pulled out a small brass key.
“Richard gave me this the week before he died,” she said. “I never knew what it opened.”
I took it.
The key was warm from her body.
A vehicle horn sounded outside.
We both froze.
Through the narrow bathroom window, I saw a white sedan waiting near the front drive. The clinic worker was behind the wheel.
Rosa's eyes widened. “You can't go through the front.”
“I can if I walk.”
“Daniel will stop you.”
“Then he'll have to do it where someone can see.”
I changed into a pair of flat shoes and wrapped a coat around my shoulders. Rosa tried to help, but I stopped her when she winced.
“Stay here,” I said.
“I won't.”
“Rosa.”
She looked at me for a long moment. “You held on to me when I told you to let go.”
“I couldn't.”
“Now you can choose.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
I tucked Richard's page and the brass key into the inner pocket of the coat. Then I opened the bedroom door.
Daniel stood at the end of the hall.
His light-colored shirt was clean. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows. He looked like a man preparing to receive guests, not a man who had watched me hang over a courtyard.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get air.”
“You're not leaving.”
Margaret appeared behind him. “Emily, don't make this uglier.”
I kept one hand against the wall for balance. “You made it ugly when you decided the balcony was the story.”
Daniel walked toward me. “Give me the paper.”
I stopped.
He had confirmed what he feared.
“What paper?”
His eyes dropped to my coat.
“Give it to me,” he repeated.
“No.”
The word was quiet. It filled the hallway.
Outside, the sedan horn sounded again.
Daniel looked toward the front door. Margaret's composure cracked. Just briefly. Her mouth opened, and her hand closed over the banister.
I walked downstairs.
Daniel followed, but he didn't touch me. The open front door showed the county road, the gas station sign, and the clinic worker waiting beside her car.
At the threshold, I turned back.
“I'll speak to you when I have someone else present.”
His face hardened. “You don't know what you're doing.”
May you like
“No,” I said. “But I know what you did.”
Then I stepped outside, carrying Richard's page, Rosa's key, and the first piece of my life that no one in that house had managed to take.
